The great Australian speech impediment

Dean Frenkel

Australia has a national speech problem that nobody is talking about. Despite a healthy rise in literacy and numeracy rates over the past century, most people, including the Prime Minister, still have poor speech skills. Yet this is not widely acknowledged as a problem.

Though verbal expression training is an essential skill for everyone, it is largely absent from our school system and, on the whole, standards of communication are unacceptably low. While Australians are usually more charmed than bothered by this, it should be considered as a national speech impediment.

But it is not the Australian accent that is deficient. Aussie accents that fully articulate all words, even with regional inflections, can be great. Our many varied city and regional accents can be musical, intriguing and worthy of appreciation.

An educated Australian accent: Geoffrey Rush

The unified Aussie accent is a complex soup of many accented languages – including English, German, Aboriginal, Irish, Scottish, Italian, Greek, as well as more recent regional influences. But just like slurring drunks, most sober Australians pickle their speech with lazy, restricted and heavy articulation.

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It begins with Australian politicians, who surely rank as the poorest speakers in the English-speaking world. On the front benches of both major parties perhaps only Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek stand out as exceptions.

Australian politicians are the leaders of the Mang-lish movement (speakers who mangle English), beginning with Tony Abbott – a leader with laboured speech skills. Parliaments around the country are plagued by politicians who can’t pronounce basic words. Let’s start with ‘‘Australia’’, not ‘‘Astraya’’/‘‘Austraya’’.

These common speech mistakes by our politicians are a symbol of a wider malaise around the country that began long ago.

Australian speech patterns reflect a long-standing cultural imperative to communicate understatedly and stoically – and to be wary of bullshitting. We are encouraged to call ‘‘a spade a spade’’ and to tick off any smart-arse who would call it a garden tool. This was surely seeded in 19th-century colonial times when a rebellious speech manner, unclear pronunciation and an Aussie accent asserted Australian identity against British imperial clarity.

Writer Hugh Lunn identified a traditional Australian value that discouraged people from ‘‘swallowing a dictionary’’ and using polysyllabic words. It is typically Australian to be suspicious of people who speak too well.

While this dumbed-down demeanour remains socially advantageous, it has trained Australians to be uncreative with their communication skills.

The Aussie is the slow kid in the world classroom – our lazy national speech manner is unthreatening to ‘‘oversea-ers’’ who fondly perceive us as laid-back.

Yet there are world-class Australian speakers. Geoffrey Rush’s natural speaking voice features an educated Australian accent, superb articulation skills and a hypnotic speech rate. His relaxed vocal approach allows for a fully resonant bass speaking voice that is remarkably listenable and equal to the best.

Two of our most brilliant speakers, Bob Hawke and Steve Irwin, were not classical at all. Hawke the politician was intellectually sharp, charismatic and an outstanding communicator. Despite his nasal and croaky resonance, the energy of his speech manner was inclusive and magnetic. He revealed that you could be brilliant, speak in an identifiably Australian manner and communicate more effectively than retentive products of elocution training.

Irwin was a great speaker for another reason. His sincere and contagious passion for his subject glossed over his technical imperfections. He was an innovative, superb educator who presented with a fantastically Australian character.

If Australia does have a national speech problem, then our schools are culpable for failing to equip students with adequate communication skills. This may be attributable to an educational fad that devalues delivery, ignores articulation and fails to train expression.

If Australia is to develop into a nation of good communicators, we need to value verbal expression as equal to literacy and numeracy, and make it a priority to include communication skills training in the curriculums of students and teachers.

As well, a professional standard of verbal communication skills should be a necessary prerequisite for politicians, educators and advocates. Why? Because every time they speak in public they become role models. If their skills are deficient, they are letting down their constituents.

Dean Frenkel is a writer, vocalist and vocal teacher.

445 comments so far

Yes - you're right. At a time when Abbott is helping to repatriate the Australian victims of MH17 back to Australia - his speech is a massive issue. NAWT.

Commenter

Bob

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 03, 2014, 11:38PM

Oh Blah. At a time when Abbott is using the plane crash to repatriate his dead-duck political performance, you mean.

Abbott is a creep, a lying, underhand creep who is a bully one minute, then a bully the next. He only looks good bullying Putin, blathering the sort of moron-talk that stars wars.

Oddly enough, the writer was wrong. TKrudd was erudite, as was Gillard and most of the front bench. But intelligence is shouted down by the lying rants of a brown-shirt bully seated in the front row, egged on by foreign media owners who want to sell dumbed down newspapers pitched at 10 year old language skills. But Abbott can't even make that.

Seen the video where he can think up a reply, not after a minute? Its so embarrassing, and its gone viral around world leaders and comedians.

Commenter

Axis

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 6:15AM

Someone at Tony Abbott's level should be able to do more than one thing at a time.

Commenter

Seano

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 7:22AM

Abbott certainly could do with some training on his speech and annoying habit of clearing his throat often.

However, he does sound better than the AWFUL bogan accent of Gillard.Rudd was a better vocaliser and pronunciator, but however grand his elocution the mere fact that it was full of programmatic specificity meant that the nicely rounded vowels merely were shaped thus to fit more bullsh...........

Commenter

JohnB

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 7:37AM

Of course Abbott's speech skills (or lack thereof) are important, especially when Australia is in the spotlight internationally. This is a man who is an embarrassment to Australia, appearing no more cultured, educated or articulate than someone you would meet at the local pub or football match. What's worse is that he can't even string a sentence together without um's, ah's and painful pauses.

Commenter

sickofblueties

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 8:01AM

You think not? I can't even listen to him speak, it's so painful to hear all the "ahs" and "ums". I've lost track of what he's saying by the time he's halfway through the sentence.

Commenter

MerriD

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 8:09AM

Bill Shortens speech is much worse. It appears know one can be bothered to open their mouth when they speak any more. The other thing I have noticed,especially people from South Australia (Kate Ellis), is them saying 'am' in between wordsall the time. What is with that? Maybe computers have made us all lazy in ways that haven't been noticed before.

Commenter

J Walker

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 8:12AM

My week has been improved - and I thank Dean Frenkel. I have spent the last months agreeing with the almost universal view that the Prime Puppet was a problem [of course it's actually his ventriloquist who has the speech impairment] but now I understand him not only NOT to be a problem but Bob seems to suggest he's a hero as well - surrounded as he is with toy soldiers - Operation sell the Nation up the Creek.

Commenter

Christopher

Location

Watershipdownunder

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 8:23AM

Bob, lots of us can multi-task, obviously others cannot.

All Abbott has to do is direct those most appropriate to do what they're paid for and get on with running Australia, or trying to.

In case you weren't aware of it, the PM is the very public face and voice of Australia. If he speaks like a professional or bumbling fool, that is how we are assessed.

Commenter

DenisPC9

Location

New England Region

Date and time

August 04, 2014, 8:34AM

Yes, it is. As a leader of a country, he is the representative and he should learn how to speak articulately.....not with an "Uuuummmm" every three words.